U.S. Women’s Soccer Players Renew Their Fight for Equal Pay

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The United States women’s national team plans to wear its message on T-shirts and temporary tattoos as it continues a fight for compensation equal to its male counterparts.CreditFranck Fife/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Andrew Das

July 7, 2016

Beaten in federal court and rebuffed at the negotiating table, the United States women’s national soccer team is taking its fight for equal pay back to friendlier turf: the court of public opinion.

Beginning with an exhibition match this weekend in Chicago and continuing through the Olympics next month in Brazil, members of the team said on Thursday that they would embark on a campaign that they hope will increase the pressure on the United States soccer federation to pay the women compensation equal to their counterparts on the men’s national team in their next collective bargaining agreement.

The campaign, in the short term, will be sartorial: the players plan to wear T-shirts with the hashtag slogan “Equal Play Equal Pay” at media availabilities ahead of their game against South Africa in Chicago on Saturday. But the players union is also creating temporary tattoos with the same phrase that the players plan to wear on the field during their send-off matches. Midfielder Megan Rapinoe said on Thursday that the players would use their well-subscribed social media platforms to amplify the equal-pay message.

The initiative is a sudden, public escalation of the simmering feud between the players and the federation that broke into view earlier this year when the federation sued the union representing the team to enforce its collective bargaining agreement. Five prominent players responded in March by filing a complaint on behalf of the team with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accusing U.S. Soccer of wage discrimination.

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Members of the U.S. women’s soccer team are using the slogan “Equal Play Equal Pay” to promote their wage fight. From left, Alex Morgan, Hope Solo, Megan Rapinoe, Carli Lloyd and Becky Sauerbrunn.CreditU.S.W.N.T. Players Association

“We would prefer not to have to deal with this,” Rapinoe said of ratcheting up the equal-pay fight a few weeks before the team’s Olympic opener on Aug 3. “But we’re not going to shy away from it, either.”

A U.S. Soccer spokesman, Neil Buethe, declined to comment on the players’ plans, or on whether their planned actions might violate any part of their collective bargaining agreement related to conduct in or around national team games, because as of Thursday the players had taken no action.

But in an interview, Rapinoe opened a window onto the ongoing negotiations, and the growing anger within the team at U.S. Soccer’s leadership. Rapinoe — who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee in December but has returned to full practice ahead of the Olympics — attended three negotiating sessions during her layoff but expressed frustration about a lack of movement “or even a respectable response” from U.S. Soccer, particularly its president, Sunil Gulati.

“It’s quite frustrating to know that he’s making comments that he wants to get a deal done, but he hasn’t come to one meeting,” Rapinoe said of Gulati. “I’ve been to three meetings, flown six hours across the country and interrupted my rehab to come to New York, where he lives. And he can’t come to one meeting.”

Gulati said on Thursday night that while he had not taken part directly, U.S. Soccer had committed significant resources to the talks, and he added: “Over the next several months our focus is obviously on the Olympics and getting an equitable deal in place for after the C.B.A. expires.”

But after a court decision in June affirmed the validity of the team’s collective bargaining agreement, and thus barred the women’s team from wielding its biggest cudgel in its ongoing contract talks — the threat of a strike before the Olympics — there is little that the team can do to press its case in the short term beside leveraging its high profile heading into Rio as the defending World Cup and Olympic champion.

The E.E.O.C. complaint could secure what the players have been unable to win in contract talks, but a ruling is not expected until well after the Olympics, when the team would not have as large of a platform.

Different compensation structures for the men’s and women’s teams are at the heart of the disagreement over the players’ pay. The women earn guaranteed salaries from the federation for playing for their country and in the National Women’s Soccer League, while the men are only paid if they are selected for the national team. For that reason and others, the men’s bonuses are considerably higher than the women’s, a situation that U.S. Soccer contends is the result of everything from higher payouts from FIFA for tournaments like the World Cup to what the federation says have been regularly higher ticket sales and television ratings for the men’s team.

The women and their lawyers argue that the formula is outdated and does not reflect either their popularity or their revenue-generating ability.

The current contract expires at the end of December. Until then, the players will continue to apply pressure where they can.

“We’ve had enough,” Rapinoe said. “Our hand has been forced.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B12 of the New York edition with the headline: Fight for Equal Pay Returns to Public Eye. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe